TUGS: Big Harbor Tugboats
'TUGS: Big Harbor Tugboats '''is a new special. Plot The movie opens in the Bigg City Port, with Theodore Tugboat, Ten Cents and their friends disembarking the train at the station and heading to the Bigg City Port to attend Theodore's first star tug summits since his coronation. Theodore is both nervous and excited (or "nervicited", as Warrior puts it) about the summits and self -conscious about wearing his Star Smokestack, but his friends are supportive as expected, believing his new status as star tug should be embraced. In the throne room, Theodore bumps into a female tug half his size who introduces him as "New Star Tug, Theodore Tugboat", and he and his friends meet with Captain Star, Captain Zero and the Z-Stacks. Captain Star takes notice how tired Theodore and his friends look from their trip and sends the seven of them off to sleep. Some time later, as he tries on his Smokestack, Theodore is once again feeling unsure of himself, wondering what will happen now that he's a Star Tug. Ten Cents assures him everything will be fine, and the two of them go to sleep (though Theodore has some trouble trying to keep his tow lines folded). Later that night, a shadowy tug sneaks into the port, past the patrol of the Customs Launch and Bluenose the Naval tug and into the Star Pier. Using Tug magic, the cloaked tug switches Theordore's star stack with a fake stack and attempts to make off with it. However, as the tug sneaks past Ten Cents, he turns left in his sleep at the last second, putting his back bumper in the way. The thief trips over the back bumper, crashing into the dock and stirring Theodore and Ten Cents from their sleep. Theodore, noticing the stack in the tug's barge, cries "Thief!" before giving chase. His shouts wake the other Star Tugs as he passes their docks and they quickly join the pursuit. He attempts to cut the thief off by teleporting, but the tug is just as skilled at teleportation as he is; uncloaked by the spell, the thief is revealed to be a Z-Stack. Theodore tackles the feeling Z-Stack to the dock as they reach a chamber in the port that houses a large mirror. During the struggle, Theodore's stack falls through the mirror. With a wicked grin and a sarcastic, insincere apology, the mystery tug untangles himself from Throdore by teleporting to the mirror and leaps through it, to Theodore and his friends' shock. The next morning, Captain Star identifies the Z-Stack as Zebedee, his former tug. He began his work under Captain Star not long before Theodore but had turned cruel and dishonest when he didn't get what he wanted as quickly as he'd liked. He subsequently abandoned his work (eventually going through the mirrior, apprently). Ten Cents brings out the fake Stack, with Captain Star surmising that Zebedee hoped that Theodore wouldn't notice the switch right away, and by the time he did, it would be too late to retrieve the real one. When Theodore asks where Zebedee fled to, the other captains show him and his friends to the mirror. The mirror is in fact a gateway to another world, an alternate world, that opens once every thirty moons. It used to be kept in the warehouse of bigg city port, as Captain Star hoped that Zebedee would use it to return to Bigg City Port some day to seek his guidance. The captains task Theodore with venturing into this other world and retrieving his stack; without it, the other Star tugs are powerless, and Bigg City looses one of its greatest working tug fleets. Not only that, but the stacks do not belong on the other side. Zebedee would likely use the Star Stack to harm the inhabitants of the alternate realm, and they will not be able to defend themselves against its power. Unfortunately such a task has its share of complications. For one, Theodore must go alone, as sending him with all of his friends could upset the balance of the other world and complicate his mission further. What's more is that the gateway will only be open for another three days. When the moon reaches its peak in the night sky at that time, the gateway will close, and it will be another thirty moons before Theodore can use it to return to Bigg City. With some encouragements from his friends, Theodore steps through the gateway. Only moments later, an anxious Ten Cents follows after him. Dizzy from the journey across worlds, Theodore open his eyes, surprised Ten Cents-now a harbor tug-standing before him. They at least know what his current form is, because what is even more alarming is the fact Theodore himself is now a creature they are completely unfamiliar with: a harbor tug. The two find themselves outside what appears to be a harbor, and immediately begin their search for Theodore's star stack. However, Theodore struggles to get used to his new body, learning to chug upright and get around without magic. Theodore and Ten Cents enter the seemingly empty "harbor", and Theodore gets his first look at his new body through a ferry's glass windowframe. Suddenly, a bell rings, and dozens of multi-colored tugs pour into the water. An overhelmed Theodore stumbles his way out of the crowd and bumps into a pilot boat with red hat who help him to his bow. As Theodore watches her chug off, it becomes apparent to him and Ten Cents that it's not a harbor they're in but a port. Theodore grows more accustomed to his harbor tug body and closely observes the inhabitants of the strange new world he's in. As he passes by faces both new familiar to him, he listens in on a conversation between two tugs: one is being considerably cruel and verbally abusive to the other. Theodore steps in to defend the tug being harassed, but his oppressor shrugs Theodore off and chugs away, saying he can speak to anyone any way he wants. As Theodore comes to discover, that was Zebedee. The tug Theodore stood up for introduces herself as Emily, much to Theodoe's surprise. Before she can dwell on this, Emily notices Ten Cents and starts to fawn over him in the exact same manner her star tug counterpart did when they first came to Bigg City. Theodore ask Emily about the star stack; Emily tells him that she had indeed found the star stack. While handing out flyers for the Big Harbor's animal shelter on the front entrance that morning, the stack came through the portal and struck the back of her head. Not wanting anything happen to it, she then turned it over to The Harbor Master. With this information, Theodore and Ten Cents head to the Harbor Master's office. As he keeps Ten Cents hidden in his barge on Emily's advice, Theodore enters the Harbor Master's office and asks him about the stack. Having given it to The Dispatcher for safekeeping, Harbor Master is mystified as to how the stack ended up on the water. Theodore learns from the Harbor Master that the stack is to be awarded to the Prince of the upcoming Fall Formal dance. Leaving the office, Ten Cents questions why Theodore didn't just explain the truth to the harbor master. He was going to, but he came to realize during the conversation how Harbor Master would react to it; if a harbor tug ended up in Bigg City and told its people about the Big Harbor, Star tugs would consider them crazy. With few to no alternatives, Theodore decides to run for Prince of the Fall Formal to get his stack back, but he just has no idea how to do so. At nighttime, Theodore meets Emily again in the Harbor Tug and Salvage company dock and shares with her his decision to run for Prince of the Fall Formal. The news comes as a shock to Emily, who warns Theodore that Zebedee makes life miserable for those who oppose him. It's here that Theodore also learns about how isolated all the social groups of the harbor are from one another, from the safety tugs to the research crew to the Pilot Boats, and that he'd have to get all of them to vote for him. Theodore is still determined however, and he asks where to find the head of the Fall Formal planning committee. He and Ten Cents enter the harbor repair dock, which is in the process of being decorated. There, they meet another familiar-and at the same time unfamiliar-face:Hank. While the peppy tug is more than happy to put Theodore's name on the ballot, he's less than thrilled to know Emily is involved. As the two of them talk, in enters another face Theodore reconizes:Lucy, delivering cases of oil with the help of Shelburne. Upon learning that Theodore will be running against Zebedee for Prince, Lucy warns that Zebedee is not to be trusted, commenting that the only boy tug in the harbor who's even ''less trustworthy is George. Theodore takes his leave of the repair dock, and Zebedee enters just moment later with Philip and Filmore. He spares no harsh words regarding the decorations and choice of refreshments, inciting Lucy's anger. When Zebedee learns that Theodore will be running against him, he goes to "meet the competition". Zebedee confronts Theodore in a barely lit, dead end dock and gives him a verbal lashing, scoffing at his efforts to run for Prince of the Fall Formal, outright insulting and belittling him, and even threatening Ten Cents's safety. :"You want to be a prince here? Please. You don't know the first thing about fitting in." :— Zebedee to Theodore Zebedee orders Philip and Filmore to follow Theodore and bring him something he can use to discredit Theodore in the eyes of the tugboat body. A hungry Theodore comes across a oil barge, and unable to get it open, is about to bump it Star tug-style when he's interrupted by Zak, who easily gets a barrel from it. Realizing that he really doesn't know anything about this world, Theodore decides to do research about the harbor to better familiarize himself with it. Much to his delight, Big Harbor has an extensive library. Theodore's attempts at using a tow rope are inept and awkward, he makes a mess of barge loads (handling a number of them by deck rather than by towline), and he has trouble figuring out how to use a crane. Unbeknownst to him, Philip and Filmore are watching him every embarassing move security camera. That evening, as the library nears closing time, it occurs to Theodore that he hadn't thought about where he and Ten Cents are going to sleep. Luckily, Ten Cents had thought ahead and assembled a bed out of wooden beams for them to sleep on, having discovered a rarely used section tucked away on the second part of the library. Meanwhile, Theodore's research into the big harbor has yielded a yearbook. Inside, he found an old photo of Hank, George, Lucy, Emily, and Foduck. Although the five appear to be friends in the photo, they don't seem to be friends now. Ten Cents reminds Theodore that he can't focus on why the tugs are no longer friends: making friends and beating Zebedee comes first. The next morning, Theodore is ready to make a good impression on his fellow tugs, but he finds that everyone he passes in the harbor is laughing at him. As he wonders why, Foduck suddenly pulls him into an empty warehouse and puts him in a new paintjob and hat. At that moment, Lucy, Emily, and Hank enter the warehouse. They show Theodore a video that Zebedee had posted online, showing Theoodore struggling to adapt his harbor form and otherwise embarrassing himself on camera. Mortified, Theodore believes that his chances of getting voted Fall Formal Prince are hopeless. Hank offers to help, but Emily advises Theodore against accepting it. Within moments they, Foduck and Lucy are each other's bows. Theodore breaks the arguement with the yearbook photo, reminds the four that they were all friends once; the tugs fondly remember the photo as being at the harbor's big fair. Theodore believes that Zebedee somehow broke them apart, but the tugs claim it wasn't Zebedee that dismantled the four's friendship but a series of rumors and gossips between them that ruined harbor events they put together: a rumor from Emily to Hank that ruined a auction, a gossip from Lucy to George that ruined a barge sale, and so on. However, as the tugs come to realize, none of them had heard these alleged rumors. At Theodore's encouragement, Lucy approaches George on the harbor towing pitch, where the two work out their misunderstandings and reconile. With him and Lucy's friendship mended, George agrees to help Theodore become the Prince of the Fall Formal on one condition: beat him in a game of one-on-one. Unfortunately, despite Theodore's best effort throughout, George and his lack of athleticism and inexperience with barges lead to him throughly losing the match. However, George agrees to help regardless, explaining that what he was actually doing testing Theodore's "heart and determination", two qualities that the Fall Formal Prince should have; Theodore proved that he has both. Behind the coves nearby, Philip and Filmore show Zebedee photos they'd taken on their cameras, eliciting an evil grin from the other tug-turned-harbor. In a refueling dock run by Digby, Theodore bumps into the boat with red hat again. As they awkwardly part ways, Theodore finds himself developing a crush on her. Foduck is quick to notice and discourage this; the pilot boat, Pearl, is apparently Zebedee's ex-girfriend, and developing a relationship with her would likely invite more of Zebedee's wrath. The six friends brainstorm ways to boost Theodore's popularity and get him the votes he needs to be named Prince. Foduck comes up with the idea of getting everyone in the harbor to wear fake tug whistles and stacks, to foster unity and harbor spirit. "The five of us are obviously very different, but deep down, we're Big Harbor Tugboats! Zebedee is the one who divided us, Theodore Tugboat is the one who united us. And we're gonna let everyone know it!" -Foduck The next day, the six friends put their plan into action: a lively song and dance in the harbor that rouses everyone into dancing. But even as he watches on from outside the harbor, Zebedee isn't deterred; he has yet another task from Philip and Filmore. Later that day, everyone in the harbor is seen wearing Foduck's tugs whistle and stacks, and harbor spirit and pride are at an all-time high. But as Lucy points out, Zebedee still sails down the water with a smirk. He whistles, getting the attention of the Dispatcher and feigns distress, informing him that the Fall Formal decorations have been destroyed. He accuses Theodore of committing the deed, even presenting the photos as evidence. A suspicous Pearl listens in on their conversation, then slips away. Theodore is brought to the dock, where the Dispatcher shows him the photos and says that the harbor can't let someone who'd do such a thing run for Fall Formal Prince. Theodore is s about to lose himself to despair when there's a whistle. Pearl enters, presenting evidence she found in the library's barge crate. The photos the Dispatcher was given were in fact altered to incriminate Theodore, by using cutouts of Theodore from the towing pitch, superimposed onto backgrounds of the decorations being destroyed. In light like this, the Dispatcher allows Theodore to continue his Prince bid. Theodore is immensely grateful to Pearl for her help, but the damage done to the harbor means the Fall Formal will have to be postponed until the following evening. Pearl asks Theodore if he wants to go to the Fall Formal with her. Theodore is about to accept before he realizes what the dance's postponement means. Crying "no!" over and over, he burst out the dock, leaving behind a disappointed Pearl. Theodore dash into the flower cove where his friends are picking out their formal wear and ducks behind a Ceilidh's cove, where he takes stock of situation: If he doesn't get his stack back by that evening, the portal to Bigg City Port will close and he'll be trapped in this world for thirty moons. Ten Cents suggests they tell his friends the truth and let them know what's at stake, but Theodore is uncertain, worried that they'll reject him for not being a harbor tug. Ten Cents encourage him, saying that they rallied around him because they saw what was in his heart and won't care that he's actually a star tug, at which Theodore tells him that he's glad he followed him. A Trivia * Category:Specials